So how did this publish fix the flaws in Factions?

[Nexus]

Factions still are a broken system. Throwing pixel crack at it won't fix this issue, and using bait to populate it won't fix what's wrong with factions at it's core.

I've got some ideas though that should help though.

• First off Faction Membership should have an additional restriction based on how many people are in all the other factions. If one gets to many folks then it's closed for recruitment until it's membership is withing {X} amount of others. You don't need scenario's where one faction controls everything all the time solely on the merit of numbers.
• Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players and vice versa, nor should it be restricted to Felucca. Want to join a faction fine, your fair game everywhere Tram Fel Tokuno Malas Islhaner everywhere. If you just want to be a PK fine your stuck with just Fel. With the addition of the new artifacts for factions and their potential to imbalance non-faction related PvP this is a logical solution.
• Guilds cannot be in Factions. Your Faction becomes your guild, this gives them an internal chat system (guild chat) and it stops people from being surprised by being in a faction if they haven't logged in for a while. Your Guild Leader goes to join a faction then every member gets a pop up stating as such and asks if they wish to join. Those who click yes lose their guild and become guilded to their faction. Guild Leadership is transferred the senior member that clicks NO to the option of joining a faction. If this would allow the faction to exceed it's membership quota then the first {X} amount can join and guild leadership transfers to the senior most members left.
• Stat Loss shouldn't decay on Non-Felucca Facets or inside a home.

The fact is the publish never addressed the flaws in the faction system, it just tried to polish it up, and we all know you can polish a turd all you want but it's still a turd.

 

[ColterDC]

This is the ongoing problem with UO.

They never fix anything, instead they just throw more pixels at the problem, which distracts some people for a couple of weeks, but as soon as everyone has the new pixels, we're right back to square one, except we're usually even worse off because they've added even more unbalanced items into the game.

Most of the UO community reminds me of little kids who get distracted by shiny objects. Let's not worry about all the duping, scripting, speedhacking, etc. As long as we get new shinies to collect, we're good.

 

[Splup]

Factions still are a broken system. Throwing pixel crack at it won't fix this issue, and using bait to populate it won't fix what's wrong with factions at it's core.

I've got some ideas though that should help though.

• First off Faction Membership should have an additional restriction based on how many people are in all the other factions. If one gets to many folks then it's closed for recruitment until it's membership is withing {X} amount of others. You don't need scenario's where one faction controls everything all the time solely on the merit of numbers.
• Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players and vice versa, nor should it be restricted to Felucca. Want to join a faction fine, your fair game everywhere Tram Fel Tokuno Malas Islhaner everywhere. If you just want to be a PK fine your stuck with just Fel. With the addition of the new artifacts for factions and their potential to imbalance non-faction related PvP this is a logical solution.
• Guilds cannot be in Factions. Your Faction becomes your guild, this gives them an internal chat system (guild chat) and it stops people from being surprised by being in a faction if they haven't logged in for a while.
• Stat Loss shouldn't decay on Non-Felucca Facets or inside a home.

The fact is the publish never addressed the flaws in the faction system, it just tried to polish it up, and we all know you can polish a turd all you want but it's still a turd.

1. I don't agree with faction numbers should be restricked. If I remember correctly they first were just like you said, but it was removed. Kinda crap if you can't join same faction with ur friends. "Hey lets start to play factions!" Ok 2 get to COM, 1 has to go to TB, 3 can join SL, 1 guys has to go to Minax.... Yea right... If some faction is controlling PvP field, there will always come opposite force.

2. So if our faction is doing a spawn and other ppl come, we couldnt do **** about it? Or I could go to some other guilds spawn with faction char and they wouldnt be able to attack me? I have no opinion about if we should be able to attack eachother in trammel rulesets.

3. I agree that factionchat would be nice. But why no guilds? I see no need for not having guilds. For example we speak Finnish in our guildchat and english in our alliance chat. I know Spanish guilds etc. I don't think whole faction would appreciate seeing ppl talking finnish/spanish/swedish etc.

4. Why? I mean... Why? Whole point of statloss is to keep ppl from coming to straight back to battle, so who cares if they are in tram or house? I know ppl who fight in loss, I do that sometimes also, but I see no point why it would matter if ppl are in house/tram while waiting for loss to go off...

 

[Nexus]

1. I don't agree with faction numbers should be restricked. If I remember correctly they first were just like you said, but it was removed. Kinda crap if you can't join same faction with ur friends. "Hey lets start to play factions!" Ok 2 get to COM, 1 has to go to TB, 3 can join SL, 1 guys has to go to Minax.... Yea right... If some faction is controlling PvP field, there will always come opposite force.

Well that might be true on some shards and not on others. Take Chesapeake. Minax due to superior numbers has 239 kill points 237 of them by one guild. All the other factions have less than 50 combined, this is occurring because Minax has a guild of over 140 people in it while the other factions are individuals and small groups. Making a system to try and balance the factions membership equalizes the influence a single faction can have on a shards PvP community.

2. So if our faction is doing a spawn and other ppl come, we couldnt do **** about it? Or I could go to some other guilds spawn with faction char and they wouldnt be able to attack me? I have no opinion about if we should be able to attack eachother in trammel rulesets.

Pretty much I mean isn't Factions supposed to be a war over who controls Felucca since Tram was created? It's a fricken war treat it like one...good soldiers don't take time out to putz around with mongbats! Don't like it...find make a second PvP character and go at it.

3. I agree that factionchat would be nice. But why no guilds? I see no need for not having guilds. For example we speak Finnish in our guildchat and english in our alliance chat. I know Spanish guilds etc. I don't think whole faction would appreciate seeing ppl talking finnish/spanish/swedish etc.

Yea and? It's possible to see that in guild chat anyways depending on the guild. I know one that had folks speaking Portuguese among a select few. Almost Every civilized country where UO is played teaches English as a second language, Messages for the faction shouldn't be an issue.

4. Why? I mean... Why? Whole point of statloss is to keep ppl from coming to straight back to battle, so who cares if they are in tram or house? I know ppl who fight in loss, I do that sometimes also, but I see no point why it would matter if ppl are in house/tram while waiting for loss to go off...

So the whole point of PvP is to house hide? Stand around AFK Buring counts? You engaged in the voluntary faction so you should be required to actually pay the penalty just like you get to enjoy the benifits. Leaving a character standing around Luna Bank isn't paying anything as your still left free to do what ever...you know play a different game, check your E-mail, go walk the dog. Your not paying a penalty your not loosing any thing of value.

 

[D'Amavir]

Your not paying a penalty your not loosing any thing of value.

I agree! Let's get rid of insurance finally! Wait, you weren't talking about how all other deaths have no risk but an already struggling faction system should have more risk added to their deaths? Gotcha.

Guilds cannot be in Factions. Your Faction becomes your guild, this gives them an internal chat system (guild chat) and it stops people from being surprised by being in a faction if they haven't logged in for a while. Your Guild Leader goes to join a faction then every member gets a pop up stating as such and asks if they wish to join. Those who click yes lose their guild and become guilded to their faction. Guild Leadership is transferred the senior member that clicks NO to the option of joining a faction. If this would allow the faction to exceed it's membership quota then the first {X} amount can join and guild leadership transfers to the senior most members left.

Yes, let's punish people that join factions by taking away a large portion of the game from them. Let them not be able to join their fellow guildmembers (or ex guildmembers since they had to quit the guild to join factions) in the guilds activities. That will definitely cut down how many people join and play in factions. Wait, you wanted to improve factions? By bad, I misunderstood based on how you typed suggestions to make it worse.

good soldiers don't take time out to putz around with mongbats!

I understand now. You are a new player that hasn't gotten beyond the level where you are fighting mongbats. My mistake, you are excused. Making factions live in Trammel, or Malas or Islhenar is a bad idea all the way around. It will cut down the number of normally Trammel players that want to try it out but aren't ready for it full time and it will cut down the number regular faction players that like to take a break from the war and do something else.

Seriously, you could have saved yourself a bunch of typing if you just came out and said the truth "I want to ruin factions even worse than they are already ruined and have it completely killed off".

At the very least, be honest about it.

 

[Cardell]

Factions still are a broken system. Throwing pixel crack at it won't fix this issue, and using bait to populate it won't fix what's wrong with factions at it's core.

I've got some ideas though that should help though.

• First off Faction Membership should have an additional restriction based on how many people are in all the other factions. If one gets to many folks then it's closed for recruitment until it's membership is withing {X} amount of others. You don't need scenario's where one faction controls everything all the time solely on the merit of numbers.
• Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players and vice versa, nor should it be restricted to Felucca. Want to join a faction fine, your fair game everywhere Tram Fel Tokuno Malas Islhaner everywhere. If you just want to be a PK fine your stuck with just Fel. With the addition of the new artifacts for factions and their potential to imbalance non-faction related PvP this is a logical solution.
• Guilds cannot be in Factions. Your Faction becomes your guild, this gives them an internal chat system (guild chat) and it stops people from being surprised by being in a faction if they haven't logged in for a while. Your Guild Leader goes to join a faction then every member gets a pop up stating as such and asks if they wish to join. Those who click yes lose their guild and become guilded to their faction. Guild Leadership is transferred the senior member that clicks NO to the option of joining a faction. If this would allow the faction to exceed it's membership quota then the first {X} amount can join and guild leadership transfers to the senior most members left.
• Stat Loss shouldn't decay on Non-Felucca Facets or inside a home.

The fact is the publish never addressed the flaws in the faction system, it just tried to polish it up, and we all know you can polish a turd all you want but it's still a turd.

I don't like any of these ideas.


1. The balancer shoudln't have been removed. It was so all the trammies could join SL for the event.
2. Factions should be able to combat anyone and vise versa. Factions are for pvpers. Ganking and being out numbered is part of pvp unfortunately..
3. Guilds definitely should be in factions. When factions get huge unfortunately you have to share the factions with other guilds and sometimes some of those people are complete trash. You shouldn't force anyone to be in a guild with anyone else, sharing a faction is hard enough.
4. Stat loss shouldn't decay in non fel facets but there is no way in hell you can ask people to run around while they are in stat loss. Thats just res kills everywhere and that isn't pvp. The point of stat loss is to weaken someone so a raid or defense can come to an end..

You are right. They threw pixel crack at trammies and completely looked past the pvpers in fel. We never asked for over powered items, in fact the only thing we really asked for was to fix the exploits/bugs/problems (that have been around for 5+ years) and maybe throw in some depth to the faction system.

 

[Nexus]

I agree! Let's get rid of insurance finally! Wait, you weren't talking about how all other deaths have no risk but an already struggling faction system should have more risk added to their deaths? Gotcha.

You've read many of my other posts and know I want Insurance gone in Fel. What Risk is there right now other than Stat loss which they can simply house hide for 20 minutes or hop a moongate to remove the risk of further death. It comes to little risk overall, how hard is it to stay occupied for 20 minutes? Not all that hard.

Yes, let's punish people that join factions by taking away a large portion of the game from them. Let them not be able to join their fellow guildmembers (or ex guildmembers since they had to quit the guild to join factions) in the guilds activities. That will definitely cut down how many people join and play in factions. Wait, you wanted to improve factions? By bad, I misunderstood based on how you typed suggestions to make it worse.

So letting large zerg guilds dominate all aspects of Feluccian PvP is good? That's what's happening on some shards..I'm sorry if it's not on yours but it's still something that should be addressed. With the new uber arties they have an advantage over other PvP players who are non-factions due to how much cheaper and easier it is to assemble a top end suit. More mods and resists on key components leaves more flexibility in other areas. I wouldn't mind all PvP be required to be between factions only if this is how it's going to stay but making it where Factions and Non-Factions are separate is a second best option. Unfortunate though it would be removal of alliance ability and individual guilds inside a faction would facilitate this and make it much easier to balance and manage in the future, something that in the long run helps open doors to make factions better.

I understand now. You are a new player that hasn't gotten beyond the level where you are fighting mongbats. My mistake, you are excused. Making factions live in Trammel, or Malas or Islhenar is a bad idea all the way around. It will cut down the number of normally Trammel players that want to try it out but aren't ready for it full time and it will cut down the number regular faction players that like to take a break from the war and do something else.

Seriously, you could have saved yourself a bunch of typing if you just came out and said the truth "I want to ruin factions even worse than they are already ruined and have it completely killed off".

At the very least, be honest about it.

Truth be told I've played UO since 1999, so no Mongbats are a bit below me. And I don't want Factions gone, what I do want is if they are going "improve" things they actually take some action and do something instead of trying to polish over broken aspects of the game. And let me ask you something when do you take a break from war...that's what Factions are supposed to be a continous on going war.

Do you even know the story behind factions? How many here do?

I'll give it to you word for word from the UO:R manual which is when factions were introduced.

The Faction System – Dark Facet
When Minax took over Lord British’s realm, she started a rift, both among
her followers, and among the followers of Lord British. Both sides split into
two different groups,with different ideals,and war ensued among all 4 sides.
The rebellion began in Moonglow, where the council of Mages decided that
Lord British was no longer fit to rule Britannia. He’d not only failed to protect
his lands from the invading hordes, many of his own people had abandoned
him and fled to the side of darkness, taking post with one of the factions
of evil.

British’s loyal followers tried to crush the rumors quickly that Moonglow
was planning on seceding from the throne’s grasp, but this only furthered
their cause, making those who died or were jailed martyrs for the cause of
the mages.The council of Mages now believes that what Britannia needs is
a new leader, one who can not only lead Britannia against Minax, but who
can also keep peace once it’s restored.To this end they have begun preparations to do something drastic; call forth the Avatar.

Though they’ve never had to do this themselves, they are the keepers of the
arcane knowledge, and they have prepared many notes and items which
they will need in their quest to bring back the Stranger from another World.
They oppose Minax, and Lord British, and as such are not safe from danger
in either company.

Meanwhile, Minax has something of a rebellion herself occurring. Strangely
enough, from within her own rank and file, there are those who are calling for the Shadow Lords to be released from the Abyss to take their rightful
place as the rulers of the dark land. While her minions are grateful to Minax
for allowing them the opportunity to strike terror at Lord British, they feel
she is only useful as a magical tool, and is not powerful enough to lead them
against Lord British for an extended period of time.To this end they have
begun preparations to do something drastic of their own; call for the
Shadow Lords.

Her minions are now split amongst those who would follow her, and those
who wish to see her dethroned. Infighting is the only thing thus far that is
keeping Minax from working out a way to breach the virtue spell that protects
Lord British and his followers. The result was four different factions, all in a constant state of war.

 

[Gandie]

2. Thats just stupid, you should be able to attack anyone.

Risk vs Reward? sure we get some cool items but we also get statloss when we die. (to other factioneers)
Maybe you should try factions? its fun

 

[D'Amavir]

You've read many of my other posts and know I want Insurance gone in Fel. What Risk is there right now other than Stat loss which they can simply house hide for 20 minutes or hop a moongate to remove the risk of further death. It comes to little risk overall, how hard is it to stay occupied for 20 minutes? Not all that hard.




So letting large zerg guilds dominate all aspects of Feluccian PvP is good? That's what's happening on some shards..I'm sorry if it's not on yours but it's still something that should be addressed. With the new uber arties they have an advantage over other PvP players who are non-factions due to how much cheaper and easier it is to assemble a top end suit. More mods and resists on key components leaves more flexibility in other areas. I wouldn't mind all PvP be required to be between factions only if this is how it's going to stay but making it where Factions and Non-Factions are separate is a second best option. Unfortunate though it would be removal of alliance ability and individual guilds inside a faction would facilitate this and make it much easier to balance and manage in the future, something that in the long run helps open doors to make factions better.



Truth be told I've played UO since 1999, so no Mongbats are a bit below me. And I don't want Factions gone, what I do want is if they are going "improve" things they actually take some action and do something instead of trying to polish over broken aspects of the game. And let me ask you something when do you take a break from war...that's what Factions are supposed to be a continous on going war.

Do you even know the story behind factions? How many here do?

I'll give it to you word for word from the UO:R manual which is when factions were introduced.

I agree with you 100% that tossing out new uber items isn't anywhere close to a 'fix' for factions. My point is that things should be done to encourage more people to try it, not make it less likely that they ever will. Hide hiding is ghey, indeed. But not everyone in factions does that. Nor do they run to Trammel just to burn off the 20 minute stat loss. I don't think anything would be gained from adding a restriction on that.

As for zerg guilds, taking away 'guilds' won't change that at all. The same people that band together in guilds to take over things will band together in their faction to take over things. Join factions with a new unknown character and watch how often you get ignored around your fellow faction mates. It happens. The same groups run together all the time and taking away the guild aspect won't help get more recruits looking for fun in factions.

And yeah, factions are a non stop war, in Fel. Again, its about getting more people to play factions. Making it impossible for factions players to do something else with their character isn't a good way to get more people to play factions.

The game is about, or should be about, having fun. Come up with things that make factions fun AND doesn't penalize those that don't play factions, and you have something. Adding new uber items fails at the first and the second. No one can honestly claim that the new items make factions more fun to play. Sure, a lot of people may claim that it does. But those same types of people would claim that UO was suddenly more fun if those same items popped into their bank box when they logged in. Sure, a lot of people will join factions just to get those items. But, that doesn't mean that playing factions itself is made any more fun. Just that people do what they can to get uber items. That is not a fix, its obfuscation.

 

[tommywoi]

To me, it's pretty obvious that devs are doing what they want ... they DO know what they want to achieve ie. getting more ppl to play faction. The current system is meant to promote more ppl to play faction/fel (especially trammy, and it works, many of my pvm guildies who hate pvp had been joining faction lately ) , that doesnt mean the system is balanced.

They will lure players with some uber stuff/items to get them to try on faction, the balance part will come later... when enough ppl are playing and complaining , they will start nerfing items aka balancing the system. Their usual tactics, yaa. ^^

 

[Viper09]

No to it all.

Guilds should be allowed in factions. Even if guilds were not allowed in factions, that would NOT stop "zerging."

They should be able to fight anyone they want, faction or not. It's Fel, not tram. After all, it would make sense if Minax and SL were pking, they are, after all, "evil" factions. Same for CoM and TB, they should be able to kill PK's since they are "good" factions. The rules are fine they way they are for freedom. We get the idea you don't like their new items. But you know, on my shard, these new items aren't causing any problems so far.

If more people like SL over TB, Minax, or CoM, that would just mean more people like the shadow lords rule than anyone else. In a way, that could be seen as RPing or simply preference.
For example, I wont join TB or CoM because I don't like their ideals as an RP standpoint. I prefer SL because they are, in my opinion, more for chaos than Minax. That's my preference I would not want to have to be forced to join another just because more people like my preference.

Statloss is suppose to prevent people from joining in the fight, so whats the problem with them sitting it off in tram, they are not fighting when they are there!

 

[Radun]

Take Chesapeake. Minax due to superior numbers has 239 kill points 237 of them by one guild. All the other factions have less than 50 combined, this is occurring because Minax has a guild of over 140 people in it while the other factions are individuals and small groups.

QFT

 

[Traveller]

[*] First off Faction Membership should have an additional restriction based on how many people are in all the other factions. If one gets to many folks then it's closed for recruitment until it's membership is withing {X} amount of others. You don't need scenario's where one faction controls everything all the time solely on the merit of numbers.

Neutral about this. I think devs should observe how things evolve and act only if needed.

[*] Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players and vice versa, nor should it be restricted to Felucca. Want to join a faction fine, your fair game everywhere Tram Fel Tokuno Malas Islhaner everywhere. If you just want to be a PK fine your stuck with just Fel. With the addition of the new artifacts for factions and their potential to imbalance non-faction related PvP this is a logical solution.

You present two different issues, and put them together like they were a single thing.

1) Restrict combat: Fully disagree. You are in fel, you can attack anybody, going red if you attack an innocent, period. The only real problem is that neutrals can interfere with factions by doing NON-AGGRESSIVE actions, like detecting,and your suggestion does not solve that, actually increases it because you cannot even suicide on the neutral.

2) Move them on every facet: Fully agree. You have chosen a side, you shouldn't be able to cower. And if you want to be able to help in fights on non-essential facets you had better not go red.

[*] Guilds cannot be in Factions. Your Faction becomes your guild, this gives them an internal chat system (guild chat) and it stops people from being surprised by being in a faction if they haven't logged in for a while. Your Guild Leader goes to join a faction then every member gets a pop up stating as such and asks if they wish to join. Those who click yes lose their guild and become guilded to their faction. Guild Leadership is transferred the senior member that clicks NO to the option of joining a faction. If this would allow the faction to exceed it's membership quota then the first {X} amount can join and guild leadership transfers to the senior most members left.

?? Why? Faction chat is very good idea, long overdue, but asking a whole guild who wants to go faction to renounce their guild sounds completely useless, and actually counterproductive.

[*] Stat Loss shouldn't decay on Non-Felucca Facets or inside a home.

Again, why? The point of stat loss is to keep people out of the fry, and that is perfectly accomplished. I think this post of yours would be more effective if you explained what is the problem you are trying to solve, because a couple of those points really seem to have no reason.

Moreover. I see many points here pretty secondary concerns despite the fact that I fully approve at least one of them. There are tons of bugs and abuses that should be squashed before starting to modify the system.

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

• Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players and vice versa

And thereby destroying the one thing consistent since the very start of the game which defines the fundamental core of what is Felucca: Anyone can be attacked anywhere by anyone.

I wonder how long till they just get rid of Fel after implementing this idea. I hear instanced battlegrounds, wow-like, are the future.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I stopped reading at this.

Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players and vice versa,

Any other playstyles you all think should be exempt from non-consensual PvP Or just yours? Probably just yours.

-Galen's player

 

[Lynk]

Firstly Nexus, horrible ideas. Only thing I agree with in your entire post is that factions should allow aggressive action in trammel ruleset facets.

Secondly, I am sick of people complaining about the new arties. I like them. It just makes it easier for people to put suits together. I spent more gold than I care to think about building my mage weapon suit. I have many friends who wanted to come back to UO to PvP with us, but they didn't have any money and didn't feel like grinding for months to be able to PvP.

Now anyone can put together a decent PvP suit with these items. It's nice to know that you don't have to spend 100 mil on a mage weapon suit.

If anything, that encourages people to PvP and I think everyone can agree that we need more people out there grouping and fighting.

 

[lucitus]

Faction's shouldn't be allowed to combat Non-Faction players

NEVER! Iam a bad minax, i need to kill ppl.

 

[Nexus]

I stopped reading at this.



Any other playstyles you all think should be exempt from non-consensual PvP Or just yours? Probably just yours.

-Galen's player

I'm not exempting any playstyles, I'm asking for a a way to separate those who have access to the new artifacts from everyone else. Your in a Faction fine fight the war for your faction leave the civilians good or evil out of it. If your not in a faction then fine kill each other all you want just leave the faction players out of it, keep the Uber Arties vs the Uber Arties and the Others vs the Others.

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

Yes, we know what you are trying to do. However, it is Fel and in Fel you can attack anyone anywhere and that should never change. Once you change that then it is a slippery road all the way down to scrapping of Fel itself.

 

[Nexus]

Yes, we know what you are trying to do. However, it is Fel and in Fel you can attack anyone anywhere and that should never change. Once you change that then it is a slippery road all the way down to scrapping of Fel itself.

There is no progress without change, PvP is broken everyone knows it. How can the balance it when they introduce more overbalancing features? Only by separating the groups can balancing take place without going back and Nerfing everything into oblivion.

 

[D'Amavir]

Yes, we know what you are trying to do. However, it is Fel and in Fel you can attack anyone anywhere and that should never change. Once you change that then it is a slippery road all the way down to scrapping of Fel itself.

I agree. Any additional limitations on attack ability in Fel are just a step in the wrong direction.